She rushes in shaking the deluge from her jacket and her umbrella, quick to be rid of it. The maitre d' takes the umbrella, lowers it with a swift shake and slips it into a stand, where other more relaxed umbrellas are already waiting.

"Your coat," he says.

"Please." She turns, spinning her coat off in a practised twist.

"How are we this afternoon?" he asks.

"We are as expected," she says. "Take a look outside."

"It's good to see you again."

"You've become a habit," she says. "Best be careful, certain habits are often to be gotten rid of. Apologies," she says, as she approaches the table where Genevieve is waiting. "I'm drenched." She sits and uses her napkin to blot her face.

"It seems like it's getting worse," Genevieve, says, glancing up from her mobile.

"Of course it is. Would you expect otherwise?"

"One can hope," Genevieve says, and for a moment is all thumbs as she finishes a text; hits send and then slips the device into her purse.

"In these times the only way to remain optimistic is to side with the darkness and then be pleasantly surprised," she says.

"I suppose."

"Oh, we're not having one of those woe is me lunches are we? I was looking forward to a good time. I've had a week of a juice fast and I'm desperate for food."

"Pig's bladder chicken?" Genevieve perks up.

"Perfect. I'd make it at home or at least try but I have no idea where you get a pig's bladder."

"Perhaps a butcher?" Genevieve suggests.

"And then how do you get the chicken into the bladder?"

"You just put your lips together and blow."

"Touché." Sarah glances at the menu. "You know, I may just have the salad, rocket and parmesan. So, tell me everything," Sarah says. "And quick."

"You don't want to go out? Make the scene? See and be seen? He is after all somebody, you'd get points for that."

"Points for what?"

"Points to use the next time around."

"As what, the former shag of somebody?"

"So, you're keeping your love a semi-secret."

"Oh I wouldn't call it a love."

"Wouldn't you?"

"Not so much, he's much, much older."

"Yes, I know. You act as if no one knows who he is; there's an enormous exhibition of his work at the museum."

"Yes," she says. "He took me to see it."

"So if it's not love, what do you call it?"

"An experience," Genevieve says.

"Ah," Sarah says. "And what is the experience like?"

"His hands are exceptionally strong, the hands of a worker, rough, calloused, but the interior is like an avocado, ripe, soft, untouched."

"How could he be so untouched?"

Genevieve shrugs.

"Do you feel you're getting to know him, isn't that the big complaint, they all had him but they never knew him?"

"I'm not sure what knowing means. Perhaps, if you give up needing to know it becomes less of an issue."

"Clearly he's already had an impact," she says, somewhat snidely.

"He says the other women have wanted more than there is."

"It's possible," she says. "He may be right, we all want more than there is."

"Bread?" The waiter asks.

"No."

"Yes."

"Yes or no?"

"No."

She leans forward as though forced intimacy, if only spatial, will squeeze out the truth. "Does he appreciate you?"

"I think so."

"Is his skin falling off the bones like an old turkey?" She pulls back, laughing at her own joke, which isn't funny. "Do you think he loves you?"

"Do you want me to be honest?"

"It's friends lunch. Yes, be honest?"

"I try not to think about love."

"And for lunch," the waiter needs to know.

"We'll have the bird, the pig's bladder chicken, a side of spinach, some mashed, and what else?" Sarah asks Genevieve.

"Glass of wine?" the waiter suggests

"Yes, a red, something full but nice."

"The cabernet sauvignon."

"I've been wondering about you," she says, "about you and him. I've been trying to imagine it."

"Do you know something?" Genevieve says. "Is there something you know? You always know something so if there's something you know why don't you just go ahead and tell me."

"I don't know anything," Sarah says and this is true.

The still water is poured. There is something between them that is brittle, tense. It's been that way since they met, as children, so the tension, the crisp, is familiar but over time one would have hoped for a certain elasticity, a kind of give that has never emerged.

"You act like you know something, you act like you know all the intimate details, the unsaids of everyone else's life."

"I don't think of myself as acting. And if we're being honest…"

"We are."

"I know one small thing," she pauses. "I'm a little jealous."

"A taste from the kitchen," the waiter says, setting small plates in front of them. "House-made salami, a pocket of olive juice, and that's a mustard ginger foam on the top."

"What about you? Are things better?"

"Sadly, I've never really recovered," Sarah says.

"It's been a while," Genevieve says.

"I'm slow to adjust," Sarah says.

"Better not to adjust, to adjust means you think it will then remain as it is, it will stay the same."

Sarah nods. "You're quite right, don't adjust, simply carry on."

"Push forward," Genevieve says.

"Onward Christian Soldiers, Forward Through The Ages and all that." She sips her wine.

"How long do you maintain a grudge?" Genevieve asks.

"How long do you hold a crush?" Sarah retorts. "Time is irrelevant – what happened to me should never happen to anyone, it was one of those life-changing events. The worst part, I didn't see it coming, I didn't have a chance to prepare, to brace myself, to think, here it comes, and watch my life flash before my eyes. It was late afternoon, I was home alone."

"Having a moment to yourself," Genevieve says.

"I was having a sit down, a moment, a cup of tea. I was trying to read a book that I'd been trying to read for months. The phone rang. It was him."

"Hugo," Genevieve says.

Sarah nods. "Where are you? I ask, wondering, why aren't you home? I'm at a friend's house he says."

"Who?" Genevieve says.

"You don't know her. He says. Look he said I've got some news for you."

"News?" Genevieve says.

"I don't like you he says. He pauses. Actually, it's worse than that, loathe you. Our marriage is a sham, an ugly, disgusting excuse of a relationship. Are you high? I ask."

"No," Genevieve says.

"Drunk?" Sarah asks.

"Maybe a little," Genevieve says.

"But that's not the point. The point is I don't love you. And maybe worse, I hate our whole life, your friends, so clever, so self-satisfied, so fucking spoiled. I take a deep breath."

"Hugo, you can't mean it," Genevieve says.

"I do mean it all this and more. He says. Your tits are hard, they're like rocks. But, you bought me my tits. I say. They were an anniversary gift. It was you who wanted me to have bigger, firmer tits after the children were born, you said, you missed my breasts, that mine hung like empty sacks low and flat on my chest. Well, I was wrong. Your old tits were better. Why would a woman get new tits just because her husband said so?"

"You don't expect me to answer that," Genevieve says.

"There are sounds in the background," Sarah says. "Where are you?"

"I told you, he insists, at a friend's house," Genevieve says.

"And are you sleeping with this friend?" I must ask.

"Yes." Genevieve says.

"Since when?" Sarah asks. "Ten days, two weeks, something like that."

"Where did you meet her?" Genevieve asks.

"In the park. Is she there now? I ask. There is no answer. I raise my voice.

"Did she tell you to call your wife and tell her you're leaving? Did she say, no tickie no washie? Did she put you up to this? He says nothing. Is she listening to our conversation? Still nothing. I get up from my chair. I go to the window. I open it. I think of jumping. I am overwhelmed, sickened. I look out, the streets are wet, the evening rain has just stopped, the city is wet, shining, kind of romantic and there's Hugo on the phone telling me how disgusting my tits are and that my ass has gone flat. I remind him that he never had an ass."

"Men don't need one," Genevieve says.

"That's not true, it's a misconception; women like to hold on to something to give a little squeeze. Where are you Hugo, are you in the city, are you right out there, somewhere, are you on the payphone at the corner – someone is. Is that you Hugo?"

"I told you," Genevieve says. "I'm at a friend's house, I'm not where you can see me."

At the table Sarah's eyes begin to water. "I am sobbing. I hear myself say, well, I've got some news for you too; I put up with you for a long time, despite your comments about my tits, despite the fact that whenever you're supposed to show, you vanish. I got you through. Remember the cokehead episode, remember when you sold your father's watch, when you bankrupted us, including the money my grandmother left for the children to be educated. I could have dropped you a thousand times, but did I Hugo? Did I leave you or did I get down on my knees, down to where you are, and tell you, 'Don't worry bumpy, it'll be better soon, it won't happen again, things like this they happen once in a lifetime and it's over now – all gone. I held you Hugo, I talked you down, and this is what you're doing, this is my thanks?"

"I'm calling to say it's over," Genevieve says.

"Hugo, this is low, this is mean, it's lousy, after 26 years of marriage and four children, you call me from some chick's house to say you're getting head and our marriage is over. There is no response," Sarah says. "What is she like Hugo, is she that good? Does she do it some way I should know about, something special, a little trick in the finish?"

"I'm going now, he says," Genevieve says.

"Yes," she says.

There is a distraction as their main course is whisked out of the kitchen and to the table, the pig bladder blown up like a balloon, a thin fleshy globe. All eyes are on their table as the waiter pops the bladder with a carving knife and reveals the chicken, which appears naked, as if uncooked. "It doesn't brown in the bladder," the waiter says. "That's what keeps it so tender." He deftly takes the skin off the chicken and carves the bird as the patrons at other tables ask, what did they order?

"I was left without words," she says.

"He called two weeks later," Genevieve says. "Not exactly contrite."

"No, more like it was all a misunderstanding. It was a big nothing he said. No big deal. I was taken for a ride. She dumped you, I said. Yes. But not before she got 10,000 bucks outta me. For what? Everything? When we last spoke it sounded like you were getting something out of it."

"Did you tell the kids yet?" Genevieve says.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I didn't know what to say."

"You have to believe me," Genevieve says.

"I do believe you, I believed you for 25 years and I believed you two weeks ago, it's right now that's up in the air. What about the sham the ugly disgusting poor excuse for a relationship what about my hard tits."

"I was under the influence. Maybe we could get your tits redone, softened up a bit, put back where they were originally," Genevieve says.

"Maybe these are my tits now and that's just the way they're going to be."

"Maybe," Genevieve says.

"Come home, I say," Sarah says.

"And what did you tell the children?" Genevieve asks.

"We had to tell them something," Sarah says.

"What were they thinking? Did they wonder where he had gone?"

"We sat them down and said that we hadn't meant to frighten them, we're sorry for the delay, we weren't intending to keep them in the dark but wanted to wait until there was news, until there was something to say."

"And what did you say?"

"We said that Daddy had been kidnapped but now was back safe and sound."

"Kidnapped by who?"

"Whom."

"Terrorists of course our older boy said. And we just nodded. How awful, our daughter said. Yes, we said. But there is good news."

"What?" Genevieve asks.

"Once this has happened it will never happen again, you don't get kidnapped by terrorists twice."

"And did the children believe you, did they believe that he was kidnapped by terrorists?"

"Yes," Sarah says. "And oddly he believes it too." She finishes her wine. "I think it would have been better if he'd been killed. If the terrorists had finished him off, if when I looked out the window and saw someone at the phone booth, it had been him and then a big truck, a newspaper delivery truck, would have skipped the light, skipped the curb and flattened him – mid-sentence. That would have been good. It would be easier, would make this constant sensation of having been in some kind of accident more logical, or if not logical perhaps more natural. It would have been a more natural end for him to have been killed than for us to simply go on as though nothing has changed."

"And what for desert?" the waiter asks. "A sweet? A pudding?"

"Tea," Sarah says.

"What kind of tea? Black, herbal, green?" the waiter asks.

"What have we come to that one can't simply order a cup of tea without it turning into 20 questions?"

"We'll have the Chocolate Mousse At Your Discretion."

"What does that mean, at your discretion?" Sarah wants to know.

The waiter brings an enormous crockery bowl of chocolate mousse and leaves it on the table. He brings two smaller bowls and two spoons. "At your discretion," he says.

"You take as much as you want?" Genevieve asks.

"Or as little," Sarah says.

"Fantastic," Genevieve says, heavily serving herself. "This is so good it's almost chewy." They take what they like and then they want more but their spoons are no longer clean. "Use your butter knife," Genevieve urges her. "Your butter knife is clean." The tension is broken; they giggle over bad behaviour, gluttony and a bowl of chocolate mousse.

"After a week of vegetable juices, a life of deprivation this pudding is a drug. I am getting high just eating it," Sarah says. "So, what about you, what are your plans for the summer?"

"Off to Corsica. He has a place there."

"Have you ever been?"

"No. It's a first for him as well; he's always gone alone. You?" Genevieve asks.

"Here," Sarah says. "I am staying right here." She gestures to the rain that never stops. "Look at it out there. I can't go out there." She pulls the enormous bowl of pudding closer. People can't help but stare.

Author of A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius and What Is The What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, Eggers founded McSweeney's publishing house. He has recently co-written, with Spike Jonze, a film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are.